Smaller, but no less grateful, crowds turned out Thursday at
some traditional Inland venues for free Thanksgiving meals.

The Salvation Army in San Bernardino served as many as 250
people, half the number who ate there as recently as three years
ago. More than 130 meals were dished up during a two-hour feed at a
Catholic school in San Jacinto, about half the amount the school
had prepared to serve. A Murrieta restaurant serving free meals
expected as many as 500 people through the day.

Volunteers showing up to help serve meals at the Salvation Army
corps in San Bernardino early Thursday morning discovered that a
passenger van had been vandalized overnight.

"That was an unfortunate Thanksgiving morning greeting,"
Salvation Army Capt. Stephen Ball said as he and several volunteers
scrubbed gang-related graffiti from the walls and windshield. "It
wasn't a pleasant thing to find.

The door of the van was broken, air had been let out of some
tires and fabric seats inside may have to be reupholstered.

Ball said the facility on West 5th Street has been a frequent
target "for little things, like siphoning gas, scratching the sides
of vehicles, and on and on."

Inside the building, volunteers outnumbered diners through much
of the morning.

"Attendance is way down," said Kathy Brown, a homeless shelter
coordinator for the Salvation Army. "I think it's because there are
other facilities that are feeding people. It's competition, but
that's a good thing because we do it throughout the whole year. We
feed people six days a week."

Volunteers and staff members cooked enough turkey, stuffing,
potatoes, gravy, yams and pumpkin pie to feed 500 people, but it
looked by mid-day that they would be lucky to draw half that many
people.

"We'll be feeding people turkey for the next few days," Brown
said.

The group's head chef, Richard Tafolla, of Bloomington, said he
began preparing the meals on Monday, including 25 turkeys.

Tafolla has been working as a cook at the Salvation Army for 11
years, having undergone rehabilitation for addictions to alcohol
and drugs through a Salvation Army program and joining its church
15 years ago.

"My parents had restaurants when I was young, so I started
cooking at an early age," he said. "The funny part is, I swore when
I was cooking in my parents' restaurant that I would never cook
when I got older.

"But God thought something different," he said.

Pedro Duarte, 55, said he was grateful for the turkey he was
served at the Salvation Army on Thursday morning.

The unemployed steel grinder is homeless. He hunts for a job by
day, makes the rounds of food kitchens and sleeps in his car at
night.

"I won't kid you, it's pretty rough," he said. "I look here and
I look there, but I just can't find a job."

Christine Reaza, 43, supports herself and four of her six
children on $325 a month of welfare benefits.

"It's very tough to get by," she said. "They keep cutting
everything back."

Join the conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful
conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments,
we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful,
threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent
or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law,
regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.